Wednesday, 1 February 2017

Big Walk Wednesday: #EastFinchley #N2 to North Woolwich on the #CapitalRing #photoblog Part One

DC Editor Adam writes…

As regular Daily Constitutional readers and some London Walkers will know, on my days off I like to stride out and walk London. I'm a big fan of the Capital Ring orbital walking route and I love to walk the Thames. Many of the pictures and ideas that end up on this blog are born out of my rambles.

On Wednesdays here on The Daily Constitutional, I'll be sharing some snaps, random observations and the odd bit of trivia picked up along the routes of my wanders.

Last week I set out to walk Section 12 to Section 15 - from my front door in East Finchley to North Woolwich by the Thames in the bleak midwinter.

The Capital Ring over these four sections encompasses several different walking routes: The Capital Ring, The Parkland Walk (South), the New River path, the Lea Valley Walk, the Jubilee Greenway and the Thames Path. Here are the signs you'll know them by…

Not that signs were easy to see early on the 23rd of January. Freezing fog…

… as I headed for Highgate Wood, where I found a dramatic obelisk…

It's actually the old drinking fountain (but everything looks more dramatic in the fog, as you'll see later). Over to Samuel Taylor Coleridge…

Highgate Wood and then Queen's Wood…

Highgate Wood, owned and managed by the City of London Corporation, and Queen's Wood, said to have once been a plague pit renamed in honour of Queen Victoria in 1898, were once part of the ancient Forest of Middlesex mentioned in the Domesday Book.

A spot of advice at Highgate…

Fair enough.

Then it's on to hook up with the Parkland Walk (South) toward Finsbury Park…

The Parkland Walk follows the line of the old Edgware, Highgate & London Railway…

… seen marked here on the A-Z from 1938 (pages from my souvenir edition - thanks Wiebke & Joe for the Christmas pressie!)…

(Shop for your own copy (hours of browsing fun!) at the A-Z website www.az.co.uk)

… along the New River toward Stoke Newington where I met Hannah and her owner…

Hannah was particularly barky as I approached. Her owner offered that Hannah was so agitated because, in the fog, my hat made me look like an enormous dog walking on its hind legs. A fair point when you see the hat…

The writing's on the wall. She sounds like a helluva gal…

Did she tell us that a game show host would be the president and that we'd leave the EU? Or that Spurs would win the league in 2016/17? If the latter, I'd love Cassandra, too.

That most stylish of nincompoops, Mister Toad…

The New River was frozen over. I was tickled by my footage of a duck making a skiddy landing on the ice…

The ducks, on the other hand, looked a bit grumpy with each other…

The Castle Climbing Centre…

… housed in a former pumping station built by the New River Company following the Metropolis Water Act of 1852 banning the drinking of Thames below Teddington in the west. It looks rather well in the mist, I think.On to Clissold Park and a damned fine cup o' coffee in the former home of Jonathan Hoare, an 18th century merchant and anti-slavery campaigner…

Painted clues of a Stoke Newington past…

Abney Park Cemetery is one of the Magnificent Seven Cemeteries of London. The central chapel is currently under restoration…

William and Catherine Booth, founders of the Salvation Army are buried in Abney Park Cemetery, as is Joanna Vassa (1795 to 1857) a former slave who became an anti slavery campaigner and Betsi Cadwaladr, 1789 - 1860, a working class Welsh nurse who worked alongside, and regularly clashed with the upper class Florence Nightingale during the Crimean War. More on London Cemeteries in the London Walks Halloween Podcast 2016…

Cedra Court…

… where East End gangster Ronnie Kray kept a flat and arranged, er, "parties" for guests such as Lord Boothby. Brother Reggie Kray also had a flat here with his wife Frances

On to the Lea Valley, by Walthamstow Marshes and another Wind in the Willows reference (see Toad, above)…